


Existentialism

by Spaghetti4U



Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Boxfam mentionned, Canon Universe, Confused Radicles, Enid and K.O. are here too now, It takes place a little after the end of season 2, Late at Night, M/M, Raymond thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-22 23:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20000089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghetti4U/pseuds/Spaghetti4U
Summary: Being a robot presents some pros and cons. Being a quick learner helps Raymond quite a lot, but having so many new experiences and emortions can sometimes be a little overwhelming for such a young robot. That's why Raymond like to take some time, at night, to think about everything it implies to be who he is. Unfortunalety for him, sometimes his thoughts are disturbed by some unecessary feelings.





	1. Liberty

**Author's Note:**

> First Radmond fic ! It's not really fluffy, nor angsty either, to be honest, there is almost no romance at all. It's mostly just Raymond crushing and not really knowing it lol. By the way, the episode "Rad likes Robots" is mentionned here, I don't remember if Raymond knew Shannon never rebooted, but I don't think he did, so here, he still think Shannon followed his advice. 
> 
> Please keep in mind that I'm terrible at writing, and I'm not english, so there might be some mistakes here and there. Still hope you enjoy it though !

Sometimes, at night, Raymond liked to think. Not just any kind of thinking, of course, anyone could do that.  
But to think about his situation, his and his family's. After all, even if he was technically one of the youngest here, he was still the more mature out of his siblings, so it only made sense that he was also more knowledgeable and, well, more erudite than the others.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Upon his lifespan, he had met with several entities far different from him. Organic lives, for instance. Those were truly fascinating, in his opinion. They were way less perfect than robots, and quite vulgar forms of living, but they were also shining with some kind of passion and sense of unicity that he never ever saw in his fellow metallic brothers. It wasn't... surprising that most of his family seemed to ignore that, expect maybe Mikayla who somehow wanted to be human (a thing he never truly understood) but Raymond was well aware that they were interesting creatures.

First of all, so many kinds of organic lives were out there, humans, as was said before, but also mutants, like Fink, or aliens, like Radicles. It wasn't hard to believe other forms of life were just waiting for him to discover them.

The first question that crossed his mind when he met with those outsiders was how they could possibly put up with having only one, and ever so fragile body. He was used seeing Darrells all over the place, or Jethros, even him, sometimes, had to have a new functional body, or repairs, but organic life... They just couldn't. If they ever broke or got hurt, it was only a tragic end awaiting them. How harsh.  
Soon, he had realized that having one only body was maybe why their freedom and willpower seemed so important to them, and that's when he really started thinking. About him, about others.  
He knew well that his father was known to like having control over his children, but that wasn't all. They had their own mind, personality, they all developed their own tastes and hobbies, so why was this idea of being, oh so unique never crossed his mind, or his siblings’ minds, before?

After all, he was him, Raymond, the great, handsome, stylish robot. He was pretty unique in his opinion.

After admitting that, it became clear to him : he was his own being, and he should show it. Still, he would follow orders, of course, by respect to his father, but he would also make his own choices, and follow his own path.

From this point on, Raymond had changed. He started new things, did what he liked, formed bonds with people around him. Between his wonderful clothe-brand, his shopping-sessions with Shannon, his rivalry with Radicles, the fun in attacking the Plaza-Losers, everything felt right.

Almost.

He, as a perfectly unique being, had started to develop... emotions, that he wished he hadn't had to face yet. Since his mind was now free, his heart was too.  
Out of all his family, he probably was the most... sensitive to his environment, and willing be touched and changed by it.

At first, he hadn't really questioned it, and just went with it, but one day, the unexpected happened.

Raymond remembered it very well: his own sister, Shannon, on top of that awful monster of Radicles, starting to manifest some... _“romantic”_ feelings for him. Truly a disgusting sight.  
All day, he and Darrell had tried to reason her, to make her understand that her circuits were misfunctioning, but in vain. After all, Raymond might have been convinced that he was his own person, he still couldn't understand the feeling of love, nonetheless, admit that robots could experiment it. Passion sure was one thing he knew very well. He was a being of passion and purpose, a very representation of expressionism. But love ? Oh, that was something totally different. Loving someone implied giving your all for one entity, living for that person, being attracted to them, seeking their respect and appreciation more than anything else. But also being in need of constant attention and affection, right?  
Fortunately, it all came to term when she accepted to reboot, that ridiculous episode was over, thus affirming for good his theory that robots cannot, indeed, be in love with someone.

... Or so he thought.

He wasn't in love, of course. Is that what you were thinking? That Raymond, the most perfect creation of Lord Boxman himself, would fall for someone? Hah. No, of course not. He had his standards, please.  
But. He admitted, that, sometimes, maybe, some disturbing emotions were triggered within him. Emotions that he couldn't truly take the grasp of.  
To be out mostly honest, most of those unknown feelings were caused by one being, the blue, puffy-haired loser of Lakewood Plaza, aka his rival: Radicles.

Every good story had its start, yes? This one started at the Prom Night that Raymond had managed to live up. Well, his rivalry with Radicles did start before that very event, since they, somehow, maybe a little, were both alike sometimes, but that was quite irrelevant.  
That night was... breathtaking, as he remembered it.  
He could still visualize it: he, the savior of the day, went to the lifeless party across the street to spice things up. Oh, had it been charming. But the fun part hadn't been the fact that he was the one who made this night a S-Tier souvenir, but how he did it.  
A spark of electricity ran into his body as he reacted in his head the dance battle with Radicles. Those fluid, natural, almost instinctual movements that they shared. He remembered everything, and somehow, he liked to believe Radicles remembered it too.  
This was when it was awoken in him : curiosity, envy, amusement, surprise, excitement all merged together in a single spark of emotion coming directly from his metallic chest, making him remember again and again every duals, battles, moment he shared with his rival.

As far as this went, it was fairly fine. Sure, he was sometimes getting too pumped up, during, before and maybe after their meetings, but the idea he had over his... _relationship_ (if you can call that that) with Radicles was crystal clear. He was his archenemy, nothing wrong with feeling fired up at this thought of making him bite the dust. Yet. Because there was a yet, it wasn't all that simple nowadays.

The thing is that, recently, Raymond, by unfortunate circumstances, had the… opportunity to work alongside Radicles for several reasons. At the beach for example, or when they went hiking. And the worst was that it was... entertaining. He didn't hate those times, to be perfectly honest, he enjoyed them, maybe as much as he enjoyed battling against him. When they were... together, he couldn't afford to ruin the moment. Sure, he was still sending some devilishly tactful provocations to trigger him, that never got old, but he couldn't just think of fighting him or stop what they were doing. Worst, he even caught himself few times in deep conversations with him!

It was really weird, to think about that. It almost felt like their bond was evolving to some sort of... friendship, somehow...?

No, that couldn't be it. He had seen "friends" interact before, quite a lot of time, actually. He just had to watch the Bodega Losers. They were softer, and less... dragged to the other. But it wasn't just mere rivalry anymore. So, he thought, just briefly, was it _love_?

No, definitely not, he had seen Shannon pretending to love, and it was far different than what he was feeling right now. He didn't want to... _smooch_ or whatever Radicles. Ugh. What a grotesque idea. Punch him, at best. He didn't yearn for any physical contact with him, though, he admitted that having his attention was pleasing in some way. So then...

Raymond was stopped in his track by a familiar sound buzzing directly into his ears.  
... Were his fans going louder? Huh? Why would they? They interrupted him during his internal monologue! How annoying. Now that he was back to the reality, he felt pretty hot, that was probably why his fans were so displeasingly noisy right now. It was probably because he was thinking so much about such a complicated topic. Still, that was weird. His body was making all kind of unknown sounds since his fans started speeding up, and he was surprisingly frustrated and agitated. All because he was thinking of Radicles. Could he feel that too, or was it just a robot thing? Thinking that Radicles could also feel so uneasy when thinking about him… His fans whirled again.

Okay... That was... disturbing. And unpleasant. Most of the heat was condensed on his face. Why? What was happening with him?

Oh well, that probably was enough thinking for today. If his body temperature kept going higher like that, he might start misfunctioning, and, frankly, having to go to coach in the middle of the night for repairs wouldn't amuse any of them.

So he decided to calm down, that was easy for him, he just had to close his eyes and wait a bit, thinking of nothing. Few images of Radicles kept popping in his mind for a while, irritating him a bit, but he managed anyways. The next day he would probably be sent by his father to defeat the Lakewood Losers, no big deal, it would be the perfect occasion to unleash all of his frustration towards his rival by blasting him away. And thus, Morpheus gently embraced him away, shuting for good any parasite thoughts that might have burdened him, and only sweet dreams followed.

The next morning went as expected. Overall, nothing interesting happened, not to mention that, with the arrival of his new stepfather, and Fink here, his father was quite busy himself, giving he and his siblings some free time for themselves. So he spent his time as usual, not disturbed neither by his late thoughts, nor, fortunately for him, his siblings.  
  
But now, serious matters were starting. He was called by his father pronto to attack the plaza once again, and he was even allowed to use his new blasters, given by his stepfather!  
He wasn't alone this time, which went along with his plans again. Weirdly enough though, he was sent with both Shannon and Jethros. It was quite puzzling to imagine why Darrell was not participating this time, he was probably grounded for unknown reasons, or maybe he was having another therapy session with Fink.  
  
Well, not that Raymond cared anyways. He smiled to himself. His mind was too focused on his own personal goal : **crushing Radicles in good and due form**.


	2. Anguish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having friends is a bless... when they are not making you stay up at night, while you should be sleeping, to think about robots. Unfortunately for Radicles, that happens to him right now, and the longer he stays awake, the further his thoughts are driving off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello ! It's me again !  
> I felt like only writing Raymond's POV was quite unfair, so I decided to write about Rad too.  
> You may notice that the writing-style is different this time. Since I'm trying to portray Rad, I decided to opt for a more direct-style, with dialogues and informal language too this time.
> 
> In the end, it's mostly the same plot-line, but since Rad is more used to romance, he can somehow understand his crush better than Raymond.
> 
> Enjoy ! <3

Radicles never liked overthinking stuff.

It was a bad habit, and, frankly, way too time consuming in his opinion. The time you spent thinking you rather could build your almost already perfect body, or work, be with friends, help at the shelter… Well, do anything more useful.  
But, as much as lying in his bed, eyes wide open, fixing the celling wasn't appealing to him, it did happen now and then.

  
And, unfortunately for him, tonight was one of those nights. But, hey, in defense, it wasn't his fault after all! It was Enid’s! She was the one who put all of that... crap in his head.

But there he was, way past the time he should have been asleep thinking about... huh, whatever, that was really embarrassing.

Just so you know, here is how his day at the Bodega went :

The morning had been normal as heck, nothing to do, quite boring, but he had gone along with it, and had made sure to get extraaaa rest in case of, who knows, being kept awake by thoughts at night and not getting proper sleep ? That kinda' thing.

But as the day had kept going it had seemed it was lasting forever. There had been almost no customers, no evil-robots to fight, and no one online to chat with either. He had had to do something to cheer up a bit. So, he went to Enid, just in case she had an idea.

Their conversation had been something like that:

Rad, as casually as possible, went to cash desk, where Enid was half-lying, on her phone, wearing her usual bored expression.  
"Hey Enid."

  
But she didn't even look up from her phone.

  
"Enid.", he tried again.

  
"Hmm." At least he had an answer this time. Great.

  
"Hah... hmm... I'm bored, wanna talk a bit?"

  
"'Bout what?" That was... a good question, now that he was thinking about that.

  
"I dunno, whatever is fine."

At first, he really thought the conversation would have ended there, but, luckily for him, someone stepped in. Someone that always managed to get Enid's attention, in a good way. His tiny little friend, K.O.

  
"Guys! Guys! Check this out!" K.O. was holding in his hands some kind of picture, and was stepping closer to the duo, excited and joyful as always, but surprisingly focused.

  
"What is it K.O. ?" Even if Enid's face was still stoic, there was could just this smile in her tone which showed how weak she was to K.O.'s cuteness power. He couldn't really judge that tough, he was weak to this secret weapon too.

  
"It's a picture! Of the show we used to watch before, you know, on Mr. Gar secret cameras. With the Boxbots !” He paused to catch his breath, scrutinizing the image. “I don't really know how it ended up on the shelves between the laser chips and canned explosive beans though..."

  
Rad's eyes widened just a bit. Finally something remotely interesting.

  
"Hey, lemme see little man." Without a warning, he took the picture off the boy’s hands.

The photography seemed fairly normal, it was just depicting a scene with Shannon, Darrell, Raymond and Ernesto (oh by the way they hadn't seen him in a while) arguing between themselves with a caption where was written in a colorful font: "The Boxmore Show". He decided not to question why it existed and why it was found somewhere around here.

"Aww man, that sure brings back some memories huh?"

  
"Hey I wanna see too.” This time, it was Enid's turn to take a look at the picture. “Oh... yeah, that show was super entertaining..."

  
"Well, sure, but it made us argue with each other so..." K.O. started playing with his hands, now free.

  
"Oh, K.O., don't worry little bro, that's far in the past." Rad laughed a bit.

  
"Yeah, sure. Can't believe you were supporting Shannon though.", Enid snorted.

  
"Hey, what's the deal? She was pretty rad, and, you were supporting _Raymond_ , like you're the one to talk." He rolled his eyes, making sure to insist on the robot name, like it was some sort of unbelievable thing.

  
"Oh, but Raymond is cool." She paused, to look him in the eyes, and then smirked. "I thought you knew that."

  
Rad blinked. "Huh...? Why...?"

  
Enid rolled her eyes too, somehow amused. "Dude, you two are like, rivals and stuff."

  
"Yeah? So what?" His tone was a little higher than usual, in his confusion, but also anticipation.

  
"And you talk to each other... a lot?" She was making it look so obvious it almost hurt Rad's pride.

  
"Oh? And when did we "talk", Enid? 'Cause I don't remember " _talking_ " to Raymond." He frowned.

  
Once again, she rolled her eyes, but this time, more out of boredom than amusement. "Well, at the beach, and when we went hiking, you guys spent the whooole day together."

  
Oh. He clenched his fists, making a weird wince, out of embarrassment. "N-No we didn’t!"

  
"Actually Rad... you did spend a lot of time talking to Raymond you know...” Great, now K.O. was taking Enid’s side. “But that's okay! I'm sure he can be super nice... for an evil robot."

  
"What- no he is not "nice", he is... I was..." Somehow, having two pair of eyes fixated on him made the room feel way hotter, and the air heavier around him. "I was..." He crossed his arms, struggling to find anything to say. "I was gathering intel, you know, for future fights, like, keep your friends close, but enemies even closer kind of thing."

Only followed the silence.

Both K.O. and Enid were looking at Radicles, even harder this time, the first one impressed, the other one, not so much.

  
“Woaw! Rad! That’s clever… I guess!”

  
Enid raised her eyebrows, jaded. "Soooo... That's why when K.O. almost fell off that cliff your first reflex was hugging Raymond, huh? Because you were "gathering intel" and not because you actually get along with him."

  
Correction, she was _definetely_ not impressed.

  
Rad coughed. "I-what? How did you even see that?"

  
"Aww shucks, sorry I worried you Rad…"

  
He briefly looked at the 6-to-11 boy next to him, "Ah, heh, that's okay, K.O.", before focusing back on the other one, "But, seriously, Enid, how did you...?"

  
"Meh", she shrugged, her attention already going back to her phone, "Seems just pretty obvious to me."

And that never left him for the rest of the day. Or the night.

So, there he was. Thinking. About. _Raymond_. Well, specifically, _he_ and Raymond. Lucky him nobody could read minds around here…

But he couldn't just... take the grasp of it. He wasn't " _getting along_ " with him!

That was ridiculous, they were enemies, rivals, not some kind of friends! No friend would come to your workplace to destroy everything and harass the locals for sure! No friend would plagiarize another's friend work to get all the fame! No friend would come to your own party and... Well, actually, maybe that example wasn't the best one because his apparition came out pretty handy that time. But, hey! Raymond was not his friend at all. He was an evil Boxbutt’s robot.

Sure thing, he was maybe cool, _sometimes_ , like when he was, you know, just standing there and showing off, with his new outfits and stuff... That did the trick every time.

But! Surely, one day, Rad would be able to see that coming and counter it. For now, it wasn't easy, Ray had some sort of... natural charisma and fashion sense which screamed directly into Rad's ears to watch him.

  
And he was a good dancer too. Thanks to that, his party had been a success. And the dance battle was... super nice for sure. He really had some nice moves, that day. Rad was pretty sure he had been super cool himself that night, tough. Was Raymond also thinking that? That Rad had been cool? That would be... neat. His respiration slowed down a bit as this idea.

  
He wondered if he would still find him cool if he knew most of his real tastes though... Probably not, those were lame... And Raymond was not lame.  
He would probably find a way to make fun of him if he knew he liked kittens and yoga, and babysat some kids, and...

He sighted, he was feeling quite down suddenly, and he didn’t really know why.  
Raymond was cool. Enid was right. Him... not so much.

But Rad had been his rival, for quite some time now, and anytime he had put up a fight with him, he successfully managed to give it back 100% at him. So, even if Raymond was cooler than him, he was still a pretty good match. And he had thing Raymond could never have! K.O., Enid, his muscles, and laser beams. Ha ha.

In the end they were both quite different, right? Still, they shared many things. It was surprisingly easy to talk to Raymond, once he wasn't trying to kill him or whatever... Somehow, he wished that he would be more like that, friendly and chatty. He had good tastes and was funny. He could be nice too, after all, he had already helped K.O. once... and to be _perfectly_ honest, utterly objectively speaking Raymond was kinda' hot. Like, not sexy-hot! But, stylish and... well-polished _roboty-thing_ or something. He was tall, and he had long eyelids, his pupils were tainted by a deep crimson shade that pierced through you, and his voice was smooth and almost sugar-coated too.

Ok. Maybe finding so many qualities in his rival wasn't such a good idea.

  
A glass of water. That was what he needed right now, because he was burning up and very confused. Or the room became a desert when he was looking away, buuut the chances of that were pretty low, actually.  
"Ugh, c'mon Radicles, you can't mess up your head like that because of Raymond! He is a robot! An enemy robot! You can't just... _crush_ on him like that!" were the first words that came to his mind after his cold drink.

Oh wait.  
He processed what his mind had told him.

Was it a crush?

  
Was it what it was?

  
No... No way, right? He blinked. He couldn't... He barely knew him anyways, he couldn't have a crush on someone he didn't know at all... Proof! Rad just had to imagine doing lovey-dovey things with Raymond, like kissing him and... that... proved him... he was not... he....

... Oh, crap. That would actually be great! Raymond, eyes wide in pure astonishment, while Rad moved in closer, until their lips were pressed on one another, he could just put one hand behind his low back, and the other one clenched softly around Raymond's fingers, pulling him in, to deepen just-a-little the kiss, softly enough to show him utter adoration yet fiercely enough to make them realize that it was, indeed, real, that they were both here, and-

Wow-!

  
Okay. _Too much_ fantasies about your rival, Rad. Too much. Definitely too much.

He put his hands on his forehead, to support a little his body from the weight of his thoughts. All of that because of what Enid has said to him...

... Enid. Oh yeah, Enid! She started all of that! She was the one who put all of those weird ideas in his head, she was a witch after all! Maybe she put some spell on him, like a love potion, to make him... like Raymond or...

He sighted, again. No that was not it. He was being ridiculous. Enid wouldn't do that. He knew it. Then... He gulped.  
He probably… was crushing on Raymond...

  
Ugh, that was so messed up! Nothing was right with that! And what to do now? No way he could just, keep it secret and pretend it was not there. And he couldn't just tell him either! One, because he would surely get rejected, and thus, humiliated (no-way he was being rejected by an ennemy, nu-huh, not happening, never), two, Raymond would probably not take him seriously anyway, and three, even if he did, _somehow_ , reciprocate the feeling, dating a foe was a big no-no for a hero.

Okay… Maybe he needed to calm down first. He took one deep breath and tried to reorganize his mind. He was thinking about a crush... But maybe it wasn't that at all... Maybe it was just, appreciation for his rival, right, it could be that. In fact, it was not like he had many rivals in his life before, so no way he could know how he was supposed to feel about all this. After few seconds of just fixing the void, everything started to make sense. Surely, he was just overthinking that.

And, still, what if he had a crush anyway? The basic definition of a crush was that it came and went. It was normal to feel… " _Things_ " towards your rival, right? He was pretty sure it happened all the time, to everyone, but that didn’t mean it was serious or anything… Yeah...! He would manage! He was Radicles after all, he wouldn’t be fazed off by few emotions.

  
Nothing could go wrong. He had everything under control. Just a hatecrush, caused by adrenalin, not love, yup, not love at all.  
He lied back down flat in his bed, arms folded behind his head, smiling with satisfaction. He really knew how to scare himself, right? Ah, it felt great to relax, and even better to be tired again. Undoubtedly, he would have already forgotten all about it by tomorrow morning. He closed his eyes, and exhaled, realising all pression left from his chest, finally ready to embrace sleep for good. After shutting his mind like that, it didn't took long for him to drift off into slumber.  


The next day, he went to work as usual, his mind was still unsettled because of the thoughts of last night, but he put his unease on the weariness he still felt from the lack of proper sleep. It was great that everything was back to normal. Enid standing there barely awake, K.O. wipping the floor energitically, and not a single robot in sight. Certainly, a boring day, with nothing to do, would be perfect to put his heart back on track. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading ! I realized after writing this chapter that I didn't mention once Shannon in Rad's POV, which is... Kind of weird lol, but whatever. 
> 
> I hope you like it, if that's the case (first thanks again) I was maybe considering writing another fic, directly following the events of this one, but longer. Existentialism would serve as a prologue for that one... Let me know if you would like it, and if so, which POV you would like too ! (I was thinking on going for Ray's POV but I'd like your opinions too.)
> 
> Have a nice day/night !
> 
> PS : It's love, my dudes

**Author's Note:**

> Hello ! Yes, it's me again, long time no see right ? It's true that I'm not a writer after all so...  
> This time I'm back with more OK K.O. content. I've seen there isn't so many Radmond fic out there, so I decided to help the fandom a little. 
> 
> I might write more if you guys like it. <3


End file.
